Page 67 of The Chaperones

Chapter Eleven

Saturday morning, 1:30 a.m., thirty minutes earlier

Mona, the PTA mom

The mud is so sticky, I remain glued in place, my legs threatening to collapse. I force myself to keep walking. It’s obvious Cassie was trying to protect Travis at the carnival. She knew what he was capable of. And she tried to bury the truth before I realized what was happening.

How many times was Sawyer left alone with Travis? He always seemed to be at the Bents’. How many times did Cassie let him watch my daughter because she was too busy with her own life to be a mother? Had he touched her before? Was it going on for months? I assumed the incident in the art room was the first time, an isolated episode. Maybe it was merely the first time I realized what he was doing to my daughter.

I can still hear the excitement in Sawyer’s voice when she bounded into the car to tell me about the super-awesome art project they were doing. Every year, the third graders get to do a 3D printing project. Past classes had designed chess sets, woodwind instruments, puzzles. I’m not sure how their class arrived at sneakers. I tried to temper Sawyer’s enthusiasm with a gentle dose of reality.

“Sweetie,” I cooed. “You know you can’t actually wear them, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re plastic. They’ll break.”

Sawyer laughed like I was being incredibly stupid. “Mom, we’re not wearing the plastic ones. We’re going to make real shoes from them. Travis is coming to class to teach us about how to make a pro-type.”

It should have alarmed me, the familiarity with which she said his name. Travis, not Lily’s uncle.

“A prototype?”

“We’re each going to make our own pair of shoes.”

There was no email from the school, no announcement alerting us that someone was coming to work with the children. We gave no permission. We were tacitly expected to be grateful for the unparalleled experience. I wish I’d stepped in then, but even I was swayed by the allure of the project, the excitement of my daughter, the kind of hands-on learning environment we’d hoped for when we enrolled her at the Chester School. The opportunities that came with proximity to powerful people.

So, I made a choice. A passive one. A choice, nonetheless. For weeks, Sawyer and I debated what kind of sneakers she wanted to design, poring over websites and making the periodic inspo trip to the designer stores on Colorado.

Over the next month, Travis came in every Thursday to review the students’ designs, to talk to them about fabrics and soles and manufacturing and budgets and whatever else goes into designing a shoe.

The conversation that day started as so many did with Sawyer this spring. How they were going to test the printer soon. How Travis had recommended a vegan suede for her sliders, which was just so cool, how Travis was so cool, how he got all his shoes custom made—which I absolutely believed—so he really knew about design. I was uh-huhing along as I wove around Victory Park, barely listening as she talked a mile a minute. “I mean, he has to get them made because his feet are so big. His feet are like twice the size of mine. And one of his hands can cover my whole face. I think he might be the tallest person I’ve ever met.” Travis was six feet, maybe six-foot-one. Not exactly the giant of Sawyer’s imagination. I was busy debating whether he was any taller than Brady, so much so that I almost missed what she said next. “I mean, my nose only reaches his belly button.”

The light turned red, and I slammed the brakes, causing her to flop forward in her booster seat.

“Mom! I almost hit my nose.”

“What did you say?”

“About what?”

“That your nose reaches his belly button. Were you touching him?”

“I touch him all the time, Mom.”

“What do you mean, all the time?” My body literally went weightless. More than weightless. It stopped existing. I, Mona Watson, dematerialized. There was nothing left of me.

“Travis is a hugger.”

“Did Miss Stella see him hugging you?” I told myself to relax. Stella was there. Adults hug kids who are not their children all the time.

“Usually.”

“You’ve been alone with him?”

“While Ms. Stella was in the hall, on the phone.”

“She left you alone with him to take a phone call?”